Legacy

Been frantically busy over the last month or so getting draft four of “Ghost in the Machine” finished.

I just completed the paper edit tonight on the train home. It’s strange how powerful a tool it is, in the 21st century, to print something out and edit it with a pen, rather than on screen. I suppose it’s something to do with the permanence of print, and the fact that you commit. In Word, there’s always the scope to tamper yet further, until you tamper too much and have nothing really to show for it.

Other news is that the sample stuff is all printed and packaged up on the desk beside me as I type. I’d hoped to have done this all months ago, but real life takes precedence sometimes. Still, I’m pleased with how I’ve coped with ten hour days at work and chipping away at the novel. It’s been an endurance feat at times, but I’m at the closing point of it.

I’m very pleased with it; I’ve got a good sense of closure and achievement that I never got with “Before the Fall” – with that I always thought there was something drastically wrong with it. “Ghost”… Well, it’s as good as I can make it. I’m confident it’s commercial enough and strong enough and innovative enough to grab attention, but that’s all in the lap of the Gods now. Well, it will be once it’s printed.

Tip: Beware that Canon inkjets have a tendency to not collate print, and instead print 20 copies of page 31, followed by 20 copies of page 30, etc. I’ve spent this evening mainly collating pages. Very irritating.

My next things are to type up the paper edit and to work on the plot for “Devil in the Detail” which I’ve got an increasing number of good ideas for.

And I might read something; that attic full of paperbacks isn’t reading itself…